Microsoft issues warning about Windows 10 update

Future Windows 10 updates to eat up more storage space on your computer

Microsoft in a blog post announced that future Windows 10 OS updates will now utilize more of your computer’s storage space in addition to the regular storage space reserved for the OS. The company is taking measures to ensure that Windows 10 computers will always be able to upgrade automatically.

The feature dubbed as ‘Reserved Storage’ will be introduced with Windows 10 Build 1903 (April 2019 update). However, this feature will use a lot of storage from the users’ hard drive which “cannot be removed from the OS.”

Microsoft program manager Jesse Rajwan in a blog post said that the additional storage exclusive for OS update would be taken from Windows 10 users’ hard drives, which will be around 7GB. This will be in addition to over 20GB of storage space that the OS version usually takes for storage.

“Through reserved storage, some disk space will be set aside to be used by updates, apps, temporary files, and system caches. Our goal is to improve the day-to-day function of your PC by ensuring critical OS functions always have access to disk space,” says Rajwan.

“When it’s time for an update, the temporary unneeded OS files in the reserved storage will be deleted and update will use the full reserve area. This will enable most PCs to download and install an update without having to free up any of your disk space, even when you have minimal free disk space,” Rajwan added.

“If for some reason Windows update needs more space than is reserved, it will automatically use other available free space. If that’s not enough, Windows will guide you through steps to temporarily extend your hard disk with external storage, such as with a USB stick, or how to free up disk space.”

In addition, the reserved storage feature will be “introduced automatically on devices that come with version 1903 pre-installed or those where 1903 was clean installed.” However, the reserved storage will not apply to those updating to 19H1 from a previous version.

In the blog post, Microsoft also suggests two methods that users can use to reduce the amount of reserve storage on Windows 10 PCs and laptops once the feature is rolled out. First, users can opt to uninstall optional features by going to Settings > Apps > Apps & features > Manage optional features. Second, users can opt to uninstall language that they don’t need by going to Settings > Time & Language > Language.

The Windows 10 update announcement is certainly not good news for users as it comes after the failure of October 2018 update 1809. Back in October 2018, Microsoft had to pause rollout of update 1809 after users had started complaining of data loss. Further, in November 2018, Windows 10 Pro users reported being downgraded to Windows 10 Home after downloading an update.

What do you think about the Reserved Storage feature? Do let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.